Theed Pearse writes to me from Vancouver Island that he has seen “a flicker picking up grains of rolled-oats off a flat surface by a sideways action of the beak.” Flickers at his feeding station fed on apples, but seemed to prefer suet or fat.
S. F. Rathbun, of Seattle, has sent me the following interesting note: “On one occasion in November I watched a northwestern flicker for more than an hour feeding on a closely cut lawn in our yard. At different times it had visited the spot, and I became somewhat curious to know what the food represented that the bird found. This time as soon as the woodpecker alighted it commenced tapping rapidly with its beak the surface of the lawn, from time to time driving its bill into the earth. Then when this was withdrawn oftener than not it held an earthworm or some large grub, which at once was eaten and then the tapping recommenced. On two occasions I could plainly see that its prey was cutworms. But what was of particular interest was the painstaking way in which the flicker worked over every inch of the small space to which it confined its attentions, for the spot was not larger than 10 by 15 feet, and this was gone over again and again. During the time I watched the flicker it captured more than a dozen earthworms, all of which were of good size, and also eight cutworms. Another action of the bird while it was hunting caught my attention. At odd times it would vigorously scratch the surface of the lawn as if to uncover some prey, and I noticed that each time this took place, a worm would be pulled from the earth by the bird.”
He says further, in a letter, regarding this observation: “At the time we watched it, the bird was so close we had difficulty at times in using the field glasses, so could readily see what it obtained. Sometimes it would pull an angleworm from the ground very much as a robin does, the worm stretched out to quite an extent.”
Behavior.—There is nothing peculiar in the behavior of this flicker that would not apply to its close relatives equally well. But J. Hooper Bowles (1926) had his attention called in an interesting way to the regularity of its habits in going to roost. He was calling on a friend one afternoon in the fall of 1924, of which he writes: “I happened to remark that it was half past three, when my friend answered quickly, ‘In five minutes it will be bedtime for our Flicker.’ This somewhat astonished me, but we went outside the house and took a station where we could command a good view of a certain section of the eaves of the house. Sure enough, in about five minutes a Northwestern Flicker swooped up and hung itself woodpecker-fashion against a board under the eaves, where it composed itself for spending the night. The bird had been doing this with absolute regularity for some time, although it was of course broad daylight and bright sunshine.”
COLAPTES CAFER MARTIRENSIS Grinnell
SAN PEDRO FLICKER
HABITS
Under the above name, Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1927b) has separated and described the red-shafted flicker of the Sierra San Pedro Martir region of northern Baja California. He describes it as follows:
Similar in general characters to Colaptes cafer collaris Vigors (topotypes from Monterey, California), but averaging slightly smaller, bill more attenuated (especially more compressed in terminal half), and tone of ground color on head and on upper and lower surfaces in fresh plumage much more gray (rather than brown or vinaceous). * * *
The relative depth and clearness of the gray on the throat and sides of head and neck in martirensis is a nearly constant character, as is also the deep fuscous (of Ridgway, Color Standards and Color Nomenclature, 1912, pl. XLVI) tone of the back and of the top of the head, in fresh, new plumage: on the sides of the body, and on the chest surrounding the big black bar, there is little hint of the bright vinaceous tinting that characterizes collaris from throughout upper California. Weathering of the plumage toward spring tends to rob martirensis of its most characteristic color tones, especially on the top of the head which then becomes warmer brown, but not, however, to the degree of brightness seen in rufipileus. The latter is even browner than collaris.